


An Inconvenience

by mad_mythical_monster



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Meetings, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 11:08:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14471370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mad_mythical_monster/pseuds/mad_mythical_monster
Summary: Bones is held up by a passing freight-train and is less than pleased. Jim makes the most of it. Teen rating because of language, otherwise gen.





	An Inconvenience

**Author's Note:**

> I did not edit this, or really read through it at all, so sorry in advance for any typos etc...

“Fuck you, asshole. Some of us have places to be.”

Jim startled, dropping his phone and fumbling to catch it. A sharp beep punctuated the screaming man’s sentence as Jim’s elbow caught the car horn.

The man--who had emerged from a beat-up old pickup truck, the driver’s side door hanging open, to stand on the road and yell in a thick Southern drawl--glanced back at the sound of the horn.

Jim sucked in his breath and tried to look like his honk was one of support. The man was incredibly hot, a few years older than Jim, and all scruffy five o’clock shadow, his hazel eyes clear even from this distance. Jim went to roll down his window, realized he had turned the car off, and opened the door instead.

“I don’t think yelling at a freight train is going to do much good,” he offered, sticking his head out. The clatter of the train across the tracks drowned him out, and all he got in response was a half-cocked head and a quizzical expression. “I really think this thing is on a schedule, and yelling at it won’t do much good,” he tried again, louder.

This time, the man glared. He really had quite an expressive face. Jim smiled in what was hopefully a non-threatening and vaguely flirtatious manner. It was always good to be careful around here, especially with a Southern accent that thick, but Jim couldn’t resist a little flirtation. Usually, if a guy was not interested, he got lucky, and it just came off as charm, but Jim had been beaten up more times than he cared to remember.

“I know that,” the scruffy man replied, taking a half-step closer to Jim’s car. Jim’s smile widened. “But it relieves my frustration.”

“We can’t possibly have you getting frustrated,” Jim agreed. The man raised an eyebrow, but he took another step forward, unconsciously, it seemed. The door to his pickup still hung open behind him.

“You don’t seem too bothered,” he said.

Jim shrugged. It was hard to be bothered about being late to a job you hated. “Nowhere I’d rather be than here.”

Those eyebrows rose impossibly higher. The man was only a few feet away now, and Jim’s eyes drifted to his chest, the top button of his shirt hanging open, revealing a bit of sculpted clavicle.

Jim swallowed. “You-- seem like you have somewhere to be.”

The other man shrugged. “I’m supposed to pick up my daughter.”

Of course this gorgeous man could not possibly be single.

“What time?”

“Nine.”

Jim glanced down at his phone--nine-thirteen. The train continued to clatter by, as it had been doing for the past six minutes and would continue to for probably the next twenty. He offered the man a sympathetic shrug. “It’s going to be at least another twenty minutes, man. You should probably let someone know you’ll be late.”  
The man rolled his eyes so hard at that that Jim half-expected them to pop out of his skull and roll across the pavement. God, that was a creepy thought. He probably should have taken his mother up on that psychiatrist recommendation after all. Although, in the grand scheme of everyone Jim Kirk knew, he liked to think he was one of the normal ones. He wasn’t as emotionally repressed as Spock, for instance, or as consumed with getting into everyone’s pants as Gaila (although he was pretty consumed with getting into everyone’s pants, so this probably said more about Gaila than about Jim himself).

Case in point, the man before him--whose pants were an odd shade of teal polyester.

“I’m sorry--are those scrubs?”

The man rubbed his eyes and glanced down at his legs. “Yes.” He did not sound ashamed, just extremely exhausted, and honestly, Jim couldn’t blame him. From where he stood, the pants looked comfortable, and at least they weren’t stained with blood or bile or some other horrible liquid.

“Are you a doctor?”

The man nodded. “I was on the overnight shift last night, haven’t bothered to clean up yet.”

He was close enough that Jim could see the bags under his eyes and the exhaustion lining his face. He still did not look that old, but Jim revised his estimate from two or three years older than him to six or seven.

“How old is your daughter?”

“Four. I’m supposed to get her for the day ‘cause her mama’s got a big case comin’ up, and the ex is bound to pitch a fit ‘bout my ‘punctuality, or lack thereof.’” The last bit was in a high, pitchy voice, dripping with scorn.

Jim bit back a grin. “She can’t really blame you for this, can she?”

“Joss can and will blame me for just about anything she fixes to. She didn’t need any kind of reason to take everything but my bones in the divorce.”

God, the man was gorgeous, and each word from his mouth, a mixture of Southern drawl and the sort of grammar that implied a studious attempt to fix it sometime later in life, probably university, only added to his charm. Fuck it, if he wasn’t interested, Jim would happily take the beating.

He slid from the car, offering his hand. “Jim Kirk.”

The other man’s brow knit for a second, and then he accepted the handshake. His grip was firm, palms dry, and he held on just a fraction too long. “Leonard McCoy.”

The train let out a particularly loud whistle, and both of them startled. Jim snorted.

“Leonard? Really? Isn’t that a bit of a grandpa name?”

Leonard--no, Jim refused to call him that, a man who looked like that should not be called such a truly horrendous name--flushed. “Most folks call me Len.”

Jim shook his head. That simply would not do. “Do you have a middle name?”

McCoy turned even redder, and he glanced down at the ground. “Horatio,” he mumbled.

An actual laugh escaped Jim’s mouth this time, before he had the chance to stop it. “Good lord, man, did your parents hate you?”  
McCoy looked hurt.

Jim shook his head quickly, holding out a hand. “It’s okay, I can one-up you there. Mine’s Tiberius.”

“That’s-- pretty bad,” McCoy agreed.

Jim scrunched up his nose, looking him up and down. “Okay, well, I’ll have to think of something else. I simply cannot call you Leonard in bed.”

“What.” It wasn’t a question, just a sort of shocked exclamation, but no punches were thrown, so Jim counted it as a win.

“Oh! Bones!”

“What.”

“You know? ‘Cause you said your ex got everything but your bones, and you’re a doctor. Sawbones, you know? I love a good double-sided nickname. Triple-sided, if you-”

“You can’t call me that,” Bones interrupted quickly, before Jim could finish his sentence.

“Why not?”

“Because I have a perfectly good name! Three of them!”

Behind Bones, the last car of the freight-train clattered past, and the roadblocks opened up again. Bones didn’t seem to notice, and Jim didn’t point it out to him. There wasn’t anyone else around anyway.

“But I like Bones so much better.”

Bones rolled his eyes again, possibly even harder than before. He crossed his arms across his chest, throwing broad shoulders into stark relief. “Call me whatever you want. It’s not like we’ll see each other.”

“That’s what you think.”

“What?”

“Nothing!” Jim shifted his own weight carefully, glad he had chosen a pair of jeans that flattered his ass so well. “What was the origin for a name as awful as yours, anyway?  
Grandfathers?”

Bones shrugged, his eyes certainly not on Jim’s face.

“My father wanted me named for his father, but old Grandpa Tiberius wasn’t about to stick some poor, inocent baby with such horrible name, so he talked my mother into just a middle name. Maybe someone sensible should have talked to your parents too.” As Jim spoke, his tongue ducked out to wet his lips.

Bones turned dark red, and he mirrored the motion. “Uh-huh.”

Another successful Jim Kirk conquest!

“Anyway, the train’s gone. But you should probably give me your number before you go grab that daughter of yours, huh?”

“What?” Bones glanced around, noticing the quiet of the tracks for the first time. “Oh. Jo- I really should go.”

Jim held out his phone, already open to a new contact. “Number?”

Bones sighed and shook his head as if Jim was the worst annoyance in the county, but he accepted the phone and added his number. When he handed it back, the name had been changed, from ‘Bones’ to ‘Leonard McCoy.’ Jim snorted and changed it back.

“I’ll be seeing you,” he said.

“Sure,” Bones agreed, a strange mixture of sarcasm, disbelief, and hope tingeing his voice.

Jim watched him walk back to his car and drive away, a strange feeling in his stomach. Bones was halfway to the next stoplight before Jim returned to himself and got back in his own car.

The rest of the ride to work was curiously pleasant, a wide smile gracing Jim’s face even as he pulled into the parking lot.

Bones was something else, something Jim definitely wanted to see again.


End file.
